


AELDWS Drabbles

by An_Artificial_Aspidistra



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 13:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7715920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Artificial_Aspidistra/pseuds/An_Artificial_Aspidistra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My drabbles from the Arthur/Eames Last Drabble Writer Standing challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Very Particular Set of Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eames is unsuccessful at getting into Arthur’s house. His pants, however? Well, that might be an altogether different story.

If Arthur had been asked what he expected to see in front of his house when he returned with his groceries, he might have said a newspaper waiting on his front steps. The neighbor’s dog. A FedEx delivery truck. A pigeon pouting on its nest under the eaves.

Tan pleated trousers attached to a body that, judging by the small sliver of paisley visible on this side of the front window, belonged to a certain British full time forger and occasional thief wouldn't have even made the list, really. 

Arthur paused, grocery bags in hand, expecting to see the rest of Eames’ body disappear with a modicum of grace, but a minute’s observation resulted in nothing but some undignified wiggling from a (surprisingly shapely, had Arthur noticed before just HOW shapely?) backside, and a futile kicking of feet that seemed like they were no longer quite able to reach the ground.

“Eames. Are you… stuck in the front window of my house?” The response, muffled by the wall, might have been “ta very much, Captain Obvious,” Arthur thought. 

Leaving his groceries on the ground, Arthur placed a hand on either side of Eames’ (definitely shapely and VERY muscular) waist and tugged. Five seconds later he was presented with the (embarrassed, sweaty, full lipped, pouting) face of one of the world’s top dream criminals.

“You could have just picked the lock, you know,” Arthur commented.

“I’m a forger and a MIND thief, darling, not a burglar. It’s not like I went down with a first in Miscellaneous Criminality, is it?”

“Hmmm. It might be useful for future reference, then, that the key is under the mat.” And, thought Arthur as he opened the door, it might finally be time to explore what Eames DID have first class skills in.


	2. An Ever Fixed Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is not love that alters where it alterations finds.

Eames sat in Arthur's kitchen and considered the ways in which the point man had changed in the year since they'd achieved inception. It wasn't his method of dress; that was still impeccable. And if most men wouldn't wear a cashmere sweater to do the grocery shopping, well, most men weren't Arthur. 

His attention to detail and finely honed razor of a mind also remained unchanged. And if there was now a carefully colored coded spreadsheet on his computer of shows that one or both of them wanted to binge watch on Netflix, there was also still an encrypted file that contained dirt on most of the important players in dreamsharing.

And as much as Eames would like to credit himself for the sly twinkle in Arthur's eye or the dimples that made ever more frequent appearances, the start of their relationship had only enhanced the true bone-deep *Arthur*ness of Arthur. No, what was truly altered was the way he no longer carried the burden of another man's sins. Now he carried the warmth of another man's heart.


	3. Self-Declared Foosball Champion of the Greater Midwest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ariadne dares greatly, Arthur is not nearly even halfway to Witchita, and Eames displays a previously unknown talent for origami.

"Beer me, Artie."

Arthur fights the depths of the beanbag chair until he can see Ariadne sprawled on the futon across the room.

"*Beer you*? What, are we frat boys now? Also remember how there were to be dire consequences for calling me Artie?"

"We're stuck in this charming dormitory until the storm dies down, darling," comes Eames's voice from the back side of the beanbag. "I'm sure Ariadne is just looking to add some verisimilitude to our picturesque collegial surroundings."

"Also I *really* want another beer, and you can do your worst murder plans if you just get up and bring me one."

Arthur lobs a bottle across the room. "Too comfortable to get up. Killing you with the power of my mind."

"Don't you mean too lazy, darling?"

"Shut up, Mister Eames. It's your fault that we're here at all. We could've been halfway to Witchita if we hadn't gotten sidetracked by your little foosball competition. Also, what the heck are you doing back there?" Arthur arches himself almost completely upside down in his attempt to see. 

"May I remind you how that very competition led to us currently being so rich in sustenance? Also we would be frozen beside the road halfway to Witchita. Which would be a lovely country song in the right hands."

Eames pauses to crown Arthur with the world's tiniest origami beer label hat. "I'll be glad when you Yanks are done with this IPA craze, though. Too bloody bitter for my taste."


	4. The Naming of Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That he had a soulmate out there somewhere seemed as ridiculous as it was impossible.

To begin with, the name on his arm wasn't even *his*. 

The day that words suddenly started appearing on the skin of everyone, everywhere in the world, he was in the middle of a bank job in Brussels. During the weeks when people started figuring out what their words meant and who had said them, he was in the middle of a long con in Monaco. By the time the BBC wire service aired their first interviews with celebrity couples whose words matched (and those whose words *hadn't*) he was tailing a mark though the streets of Tbilisi. His life was changeable, variable, versatile. That he had a soulmate out there somewhere seemed as ridiculous as it was impossible. 

By the time dreamshare emerged as a viable career that happened to need a man of his varied talents, he'd almost forgotten which of the names on his passports were the ones his mother gave him. The first job he took with an up and coming young extractor named Dominic Cobb, he offered up the name on his arm as a bit of a joke. "Call me Eames," he said. "No one does," he said. 

And Eames he stayed. "Just the one name," he'd say. "You know, like Madonna. Or Cher." And then one day he's entering a room where a cool drink of water in a £1000 suit looks up from the blueprints he's working on, acknowledges Cobb's introduction with a nod and a "*Mister* Eames" and there it is. There are the words.

It wasn't even his name to begin with, but it is now.


	5. What happens when I ask you to not think of an elephant?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one with fewer underpants. And that has made all the difference.

"All things considered, darling, I should have probably put on pants this morning."

"Oh, you *think*?" groused Arthur as he firmly pressed a bag of frozen peas to his split lip. A bag of frozen peas that they just happened to have at hand in the refrigerator of their latest sketchy warehouse job site. The man was nothing if not always impressively prepared, thought Eames. 

"Well, to be fair, I couldn't have really predicted that you'd test Yusuf's new lowered inhibition Somnacin batch with a statement like 'what happens when I say, 'try not to think of yourself in just your underwear.' I think your old elephant example might have caused a little less... uproar."

Arthur grunted in discomfort and tried to speak around his bag of frozen peas. "Yeah, no, you didn't see what happened on the last run through with Fitzgerald. She visualized a whole herd of them and they stampeded. Believe me, this seemed safer. I was expecting everyone to actually be *wearing* underpants, though."

Eames shrugged with a distinct lack of remorse. "Well, fortunately for us all I'm very confident in my body. And that wasn't really what caused the trouble anyway. It was once we got topside that things really spiraled a little out of control."

"Because you decided that you needed to be shirtless when giving the animals that we brought in for this job a bath. This is the last time I work a job that involves real animals topside instead of on a dream level. I mean, I feel bad that the capybaras got past me and are now roaming Central Park, but honestly those tattoos of yours were creating a hostile work environment."

"And then there was the alligator, which *I* refuse to feel guilty about because it barely even broke the skin, and then the whole thing with the," Eames gestures elaborately.

"With the snakes. Yes."

"And really, petal, it's your own fault that you chose to impugn the accuracy of my naked dream self while you were balanced on that chair changing the lightbulb. I take it as a point of pride in forging that my dream self is always as accurate as possible. I didn't think mentioning that was going to cause you to take such a tumble."

"I still think your statement needs independent verification, Mister Eames."

"And are you offering to take one for the team, darling?"

"Maybe. I do pride myself in being *very* thorough in my work, after all." Arthur's gaze was direct and Eames thought there was possibly even a dimple hidden behind the frozen peas.

"Maybe I'm glad I left my drawers at home this morning then. I do always appreciate when you go above and beyond for the job, Arthur."


End file.
